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An anonymous reader writes "In an insane bid to drum up publicity The Guardian tells of Acclaim Entertainment who are seeking to enlist the help of the recently bereaved, well the poorer ones anyway, to help promote their latest game." My favorite comment is a spokesman for the
Church of England who said they wouldn't allow it saying "There was enough fuss with plastic flowers in churchyards."
Anyway, I just found this really surreal.

I don't know, visiting my grandparents' grave and seeing some garish advertisement hyping exciting undead combat is hard not to associate with my loved ones' corpses being dug up and slugging it out. Lets have some respect for the dead.

This really won't take off. Cemeteries will most likely put a ban on the gravestone advertising, as it would really detract from the visiting experience -- even if it wasn't on the gravestone you're visiting.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of Frank Jones, who in his life-time, talketh and layeth the smack down like in WWF Smackdown. While troubles seemed to come his way like chairs at the Undertaker, he handled it gracefully, like those fine manager chicks...."

This really is going too far. This is not just insulting to the one buried beneath the gravestone, but it is offensive to many of those that are visiting a graveyard.

According to the article,"However, Matthew Carrington, chairman of the Outdoor Advertising Association, said that any attempt to advertise on headstones would require planning permission from local authorities whether the land was public or private."That's not gonna stop them--all it takes is a few bribes for these local authorities.

Man! What a bad taste! I already have enough ads on my life so please dont force me to take more to the other world... This is a fucked up idea, this guys are really sick, i mean, games are games and just that, people goes to the cementeries to remember life, this just dont mix, we are getting closer and closer to those old science fiction books.

Why not just embed a fscking LCD screen into the cement tombstone along with a small camera to identify the age/sex of cemetary visitors? I mean, if you'll go low enough to engrave on the damn things, you might as well go one step further and dynamically change your ads to target specific individuals (i.e. 8-year old girl -- show an ad for the latest Mario game; 15-year old boy -- show an ad for the latest shoot-em-up game; etc...).

I'm not in marketing, but I always thought the goal
was to stick signs and billboards somewhere that LOTS of people would see them. I don't think graveyards fit that description. People go there, quite often only on holidays or anniversaries or whatever, to visit a couple specific graves and then leave. I know of no one who actuallys says, "oh gee, while we're here let's go look at all the other graves." I highly doubt this would become widespread enough that you would be forced to encounter tens or hundreds of advertising graves on the path to the one you were visiting, so the only people seeing one of these posters will be the people who the companies paid to put it there. That sounds like a lot of negative cash flow to me.

Hey, some people really do like to wander around graveyards...;) Seriously, it can be pretty interesting. I enjoy it myself, though I haven't been to one in a while. However, it's only really interesting with older graveyards, so I doubt this marketing tactic would work on me very well.

I suppose in fifty years or so, I might spy an ad for Quake IV buried behind some weeds in a spooky old boneyard...;)

You played right into the hands of the marketing dingbat that thought this up. You think they are really going to do this. No, but you just handed them more hits and advertisement to there target market than they would have ever had any other way.

They tricked you, you tricked us, they got the word out. How many people clicked on this, and now know what shadowmanII is, what it is for, and who made it.

So will you buy it when you see it? No, I didn't think so.The fact is that publicity isn't always good. It's just so hard to get bad publicity that I think that they forgot it was possible. True the article came embarassingly close to a promo for the game to make me wonder but I suspect the majority of the people who clicked on the link and smart and determined enough to take this into consideration the next time they see an Acclaim game on the shelf. I think in this case this incident could hurt the company more than it helps them. Then again you never know, I could just be overestimating humanity again.

This seems like a really neat idea. I don't understand why people are all in a fuss over it. Dead people don't care what is on their tombstone. And if the family wants to do it, why not? I think it is much more outrageous how much people are expected to pay for funerals and things of that nature.

Im already forced to see hundred of ads, i want a peacefull free from shit mind life, whats next?, the weddings?, the honey moon (mmmmmmm....)?, What the fuck up is next? your bathroom? the moon?, those dumb fuckers think they can make us all buy all kind of stuff just by puting it on a wall... im really worry about ppl who does this...

Agreed! If some of these marketing people had their way, we'd be exposed to ads 24/7.

As for ads in the bathroom, check out your local bar. I've seen many with miniature billboards on the wall behind the toilet. I guess they figured if people read what folks scrawl on the bathroom walls, they'll read anything. Although, I'm not sure if I'd want my product associated with a bar bathroom.

And we can't forget about the scheme Swatch cooked up in which they were going to beam ads from a ham radio satellite, blatantly in violation of regulations stating that ham radio frequencies are noncommercial.

Then there was the one where this company would wrap your car with ads in the same way that city buses are done. At least they were going to pay a decent amount for it. I guess they were a victim of the dot-bomb fallout.

As for ads on the moon, I don't know about that, but I do know there was a plan back around the late 1980s to launch a huge plastic sheet into low orbit. It was supposed to be visible in the evening sky. I think the original one was supposed to be a green dot, but real ads were to follow if that one was successful.

I'm waiting for some company to see if they can cut a deal with the government to put ads on money. After all, we handle a lot of it (well, some people do, anyway), and it passes from person to person quite often. It's only a matter of time, I'm guessing.

Thats not what ppl who work for me and the ones who download stuff i made think, in fact i recive many thanks for your work kinds of mail, goto astalavista.box.sk and search for my nick; And english isnt the only language out there, i know enough english to learn C++, ASM, java, ASP and others by myself before finishing highschool.

A spokeswoman rejected suggestions that Sony was responsible for creating an "edgy" advertising culture around its console which may have galvanised Acclaim Entertainment's marketing tactics.

On the ShadowMan 2 website, the game is described as incorporating "fierce and gruesome" fighting. It involves users playing a New York policeman who has a "living dead" alter ago who is seeking a confrontation with the devil. He has magic and voodoo weapons to help him.

It's amazing. Even when these sensationalist so-called "journalists" have a legitimate chance to take a slam at an insane move by the gaming industry, they have to step over that line of sane journalism to get just one more ounce of sensationalism. They could very legitimately slam Acclaim for what they're doing, but they have to go over the edge and go after Sony for creating an "edgy advertising culture", as well as the content of the game. Par for the course for Guardian Unlimited...

Think about it, how many people are likely to see this ad, repeatedly? is it the target demographic? I can't see anyone imagining you'd be able to sell these ads for more than a few dollars (no more than 5, I think).No one would see them, no one who saw them would care, and, anyone cheap enough to put these on gravestones wouldn't be getting a gravestone, The ONLY reason I can imagine putting one of these on a gravestone is to spite the dead. I can think of a few people's gravestones I'd like to take out ads on...

Like another poster said, the only object of this is to get it into the news, free publicity. Parts of the article sounded enough like an ad to surve the advertiser's purpose...

"On the ShadowMan 2 website, the game is described as incorporating "fierce and gruesome" fighting. It involves users playing a New York policeman who has a "living dead" alter ago who is seeking a confrontation with the devil. He has magic and voodoo weapons to help him."

Anyhow, imagining trying to buy an ad in every graveyard in the country...

The other day I was at the cemetary paying my respects to my dead grandmother when I thought "This is boring. I'm gonna go buy a video game." But I couldn't think of one that I wanted, so I just went home.

Assuming the premises of your joke are that you want to get rid of "John.Smith", by moving it to/dev/null you'd end up replacing your null character device with a standard file. This standard file would slowly bloat until the system became unusable or the filesystem got filled up./dev/null should only be used as a part of a stream, for example in pipes. On UNIX, one does what I presume you meant by unlinking a file, so the command would be rm John.Smith. HTH.

How about removable placards on gravestones that McDonald's, Starbucks, or any big company could use to advertise.. for the audience of the sermons of the recently deceased, or for people who casually walk to their beloved ones for a cry on a Sunday afternoon.
Or maybe, local M.D.'s could use them to advertise their early-warning cancer detection services, blood tests, MRI scans, etc.
Sounds to me like like a major marketing event. Why not park a McDonald's stand right in the graveyard? Don't people get hungry during those things?
eek..

I find this story repulsive and, not surprisingly, insensitive to death. Looks like the office junkies are as desensitized as most of North Americans are. Isn't TV and website advertisement enough to drive their game into gamers' heads?

A spokeswoman for the company... said: "It's a dark, gory type of game and we thought it was appropriate to raise advertising to a new level."

Who is the target audience here? I wonder how many people are going to say to themselves "Wow, I think I'm going to buy ShadowMan 2 now!" after going to see their mother's or father's grave who passed away a few years back, possibly from being shot to death.

Ya, economy is low and I don't blame Acclaim for trying to be original, but this is plain ignorance. I'd like to kick the person in the ass who thought up this absurd idea, and two kicks to the CEO or whoever put this plan into gear.

Advertisements draw attention to themselves and take it away from other things. When you take attention away from something as personal as mourning the death of a loved one, it's simply rude. There are times to buy a new game and there are times for mourning. They should never intersect.

ObDisclaimer: The first bit of this may seem to wander a bit offtopic, but it'll be relevant by the end. <UsedCarSalesGrin> Trust me.</UsedCarSalesGrin>

I once had my best friend tell me I was morbid and quite possibly insane when I detailed what I want done with my corpse.

It's not all that terrible, I think. For the past three years or so, I've really thought that it would be cool to have a webcam mounted inside my coffin (powerlines and networking cable and all that run to it too, of course). After I die, I want people to be able to log on to a website and check my decomposition.

The University of Tennessee, I believe it is, maintains a forensic "Body Farm" where hundreds of corpses are decomposing in various conditions. It's closed to the public (for obvious reasons), but I think there should be a little more openness in society about the mechanics of death. It's fascinating because it's so secretive. I think by mounting a small light and a webcam inside my coffin, it might give the world a fresh perspective on thanatology.

Of course, maintaining the site would cost some money, and I won't exactly be around to earn any. Thanks to Slashdot, I now know that Acclaim will be the first company for whom I'll do a salespitch. Any other takers?

I think there should be a little more openness in society about the mechanics of death.

Agreed.
When Chuang Tzu was about to die, his disciples planned a big funeral. He asked "Why not just leave me on the ground?" They said "Because then crows and kites will pick apart your body."
"So?" he replied. "Above ground, I get eaten by crows and kites. Below it by ants and worms. What have you got against birds?"

For quite some time now I've been saying that I wish to be served as the main course at my own wake. My corpse should be properly butchered of course and the usable meat chopped up and put into a nice stew.

Not surprisingly all of my friends wish for me to have a very long lifespan;->

Personally, I want to be buried unembalmed in a wooden coffin, with a tree planted over me. That way over the years it'll slowly break me down and thus to dust I'll return.

Cremation is a disgusting method of disposing a body. First it's roasted and burnt until everything burnable is gone. Then the remains are fed into a grinder to reduce the bits of bone and teeth to particles. It's a nasty way to go.

Embalming is even worse. Why would anyone pump preservatives into a body? It's not as though it'll remain unrotted forever.

I think that cremation, embalming and closed-casket funerals are ways for people to pretend that death isn't real. It is real, and it is a fact of life. Corpses should not be destroyed; they were human once. They should not be preserved, but should be allowed to return to the stuff whence they were formed. They should not be hidden, as something to be ashamed of, but given due honour as the mortal remains of men.

What makes it worse, is that this game, if good, might be popular for a couple of years. Do these ads come off after a certain amount of time, or will your gravestone be forever marked with an advertisement long after the game is history?

It got the story on slashdot didn't it? How many other sites covered it? And of course they deny it is a marketing stunt. If they admit that up front, then the story becomes much less interesting. Its just not as shocking when someone admits they just want to shock you.

For those who don't want to read the article and use Google, the game in question is Shadow Man 2: Second Coming [acclaim.com] from Acclaim [acclaim.com]. In it, you play the part of Michael Leroi [acclaim.com] a "heavily-armed, 240 lb bad-ass". Here's a little snippet of the game's story [acclaim.com]:

"As a desperate New York cop drags his shattered body from a blazing tenement building, his partner and friend perishes inside at the hands of a huge, demonic creature. His death is not in vain, however, for it gives his colleague a chance to escape with the very thing the creature seeks; an enormous and ancient book, sealed shut by a series of powerful clasps...

Some ten years later in the southern United States, a near-empty passenger train thunders through the haze of an early evening dusk, as it makes it way to New Orleans. On board, alone, sits Michael LeRoi. As night falls and the moon rises, white-blue sparks of "Shadow Power" surge from his chest and envelope him as the train's interior lights plunge into darkness. Michael LeRoi, as he does every night, transforms to become the Shadow Man."

This is, of course, a sequel to the original Shadow Man [acclaim.com] (Demo [acclaim.com]) which was a self-proclaimed "uniquely terrifying 3rd person adventure".

Shadow Man 2 for Playstation 2 will begin shipping to North American retail on March 7th.

"Mr. Smith loved his family, and enjoyed his work. His two dogs, Yappy and Wappy, were a pride of his. He had great hopes for his children MoonAss, ChunckBuster, and Fillet, hoping they would go on to great deads. His wife of 45 years was the center of his life, kind of like a deadly, evil black hole. He hopes that we can continue his goals of bringing world peace, end poverty, and giving everyone ACCLAIM VIDEO GAMES! THE BEST GAMES IN THE WORLD! ONLY ACCLAIM GAMES TRANSCEND DEATH! Let us pray.

If, say, a world champion Quake player gets massive fame and becomes basically identified with Quake, and dies while whichever version of quake he played was still current, then it is appropriate to approach the family and suggest memorializing his quake fanatacism on the tombstone, and offering to pay the entire cost of the funeral, plus however much they would pay for a similar size advertisement in a more traditional location.

One other possibility- if the deceased requested prior to death to put something about a favorite game or game company on the tombstone, by all means allow it.

It all boils down to respect for the deceased. In the first case, you are honoring an acheivement or series of acheivements he/she made. In the second, you are honoring the request of the deceased.

Any other reason, is just disrespectful... and under no circumstances should the family pay for a funeral if the company approached them first.

Acclaim is notorious for putting out CRAP games. "WWF Attitude" is the only game I know of that has managed to CRASH my Dreamcast. But this is really, really bad. I'm not going to buy any more of their crap games, either for my DC or for the next console I get.

Let's hope that when the CEO of Acclaim dies he gets an ad for adult diapers on his tombstone. Or worse.